Joseph James DeAngelo's words -- "I'm truly sorry" -- was such an unexpected moment that it brought gasps from the victims in the gallery.

Prosecutors called his more than decade-long spate of crimes "simply staggering," encompassing 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.

A 59-year-old Indiana man will be formally charged on Thursday with the 1988 murder of an eight-year-old girl after the decades-old cold case was cracked open by DNA evidence linked to a genealogical website, authorities said on Tuesday.